OK, this is really sad.

I saw gas for $3.98 a gallon, and I got excited. *shakes head*

So, people out there who are following the election: does any candidate support getting the Federal Reserve a flippin' clue? Earlier this week, they decided to leave the interest rate at 2%, but they're now putting back on the table the option of raising it later to combat inflation, because the economy is looking better.

*blinkblink*

Economy is looking better. Where do I start here?
1) I don't know anyone, including myself, who is doing as well now as they were a year ago. Most people I know, including myself, are doing noticeably worse than they were 3-6 months ago. I'm seeing a noticeable Not Improvement here.
2) One of the big problems is that the dollar exchange rate has been in the toilet for years. YEARS. What's one way to fix that? Raise the interest rates, thus making other countries want to invest in this one, thus making dollars more desirable in order to do so. (To put it in highly simplified terms, of course.)

As I touched on in February, I am very much getting to the point where I think "economic growth" is a euphemism for corporations pumping resources out of this country as quickly as possible for the benefit of a few. The more the economy "grows", the worse actual people seem to be doing.

Obesity

Rants bounce around my head for a while before finally hitting the electrons. This one's been in there for a while, and since Ldragoon posted something on this topic just today, what the hey.

So, as we've all heard five bagillion times, there's an obesity epidemic in America. There's all sorts of theories of various levels of insult on why this is, from the overweight are lazy bastards (what parental marital status has to do with it is anyone's guess), to more sedentary professions and city planning that is unfriendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.

In general, though, it's reduced to "eating more calories than you use." Which is certainly a very effective way to gain weight, but I'm not convinced

1. it's always that simple, and
2. that eating more calories than needed is as avoidable as we like to think with the American food supply.

First, I've read too many cases of PCOS patients who are eating moderately and exercising excessively, and yet still gain weight at an alarming rate because of the disease. And PCOS isn't the only situation where this happens; thyroid problems are infamous for it, for example. Although it is a matter of physics that calories absorbed < calories used = weight loss, there are any number of things that could make a body absorb more calories than usual from food, burn less than usual in activities, or use muscle to fuel the energy use while storing the recently added calories as fat.

There's this phenomena with cats that a cheap food can be more expensive than a more expensive, better quality food, because the cat must eat more of the cheap food in order to get the amount of nutrients it needs, and it will instinctively do so. Of course, because the cat is also eating a lot more filler (i.e. empty calories), this is a recipe for obesity (and thus vet bills, higher longer term costs, and thus cheap food really isn't).

There's no reason to think that human food is immune to this. In fact, given the obesity rates among the poor, there's very good reason to believe that human food is absolutely subject to this same phenomena. So, let's go to the pantry and see what's in our food. Let's see what I can grab at random. I've got a can of Cream of Mushroom soup here. What's the fourth ingredient? "Modified food starch". You know what that is? Filler. Empty calories. Next to zilch in the way of nutrional value. [I really did go into the kitchen and grab the first container of something I saw. I didn't pick and chose.] American food is FILLED with that kind of stuff.

Worse than the worthless fillers, though, there may be things in our food that actively make us fat. Studies suggest that high fructose corn syrup can mess up the body's response to leptin, which is the hormone that tells you when you're full. Let's see, what's has high fructose corn syrup in it? Oh, EVERYTHING. (You know why? Because it's cheaper than sugar. You know what that is. Because 1) our government subsidizes the growth of way more corn than we need, and 2) because there is a "protective" tariff on sugar that raises the American cost to 2 or 3 times the worldwide price. :P)

Here's another one: improper estrogen levels cause weight gain. Too high, too low, both ways can cause weight problems depending on other factors and the person involved. (Remember the PCOS patients I mentioned?) Soy products contain plant estrogens. What is soy used as a filler in? Oh, everything ELSE.

This 'personal responsibility' mentality, the idea that all obesity is caused by personal failing? Bunch of bullshit. If you look at the studies, "laziness" and "poor character" are just about never listed as causes of obesity. Exercise and healthy eating are important, and will work for some people, but not everyone, and it's not their fault. There are a lot of societal issues here. Some are obvious: vehicular-centered city planning, widespread overworking that eliminates time (and energy) for exercise. Some are not so obvious. All the personal responsibility in the world is not going to give us a better food supply and a healthier environment.

You know what I hate?

The old "Navajo/Persians/Amish/Islamic Artists/whatever group isn't us always put a mistake in their artwork to show that only God is perfect" BS. It's the definition of glurge, in that something that's supposed to be 'sweet' and 'inspiring' is actually amazingly racist.

1. It's completely out of touch with reality. Example: A Persian rug has a few hundred thousand knots in it. Hell yes there's there's going to be a mistake in it somewhere. There's no need to add a fake mistake.
2. It accuses the other group of amazing ego. They think they could make something perfect and Godlike, so they chose not to.
3. With some groups, it's a major projection of Western Christian belief on others. For example, why would the Navajo feel the need to show only God is perfect? I know little about their religion, but enough to know that they have multiple deities, and perfection is not a requirement. Just the idea itself reflects the Western belief that perfection is desirable and the goal that must be aspired to in any endeavor.
   
4. With some cases, it's disrespectful and denigrating to the actual work. Again with a Navajo example, an odd bead in a piece of beadwork is not necessarily a mistake. Often they are intentionally added to mark some event that happened in the maker's life, which might be minor or major.
5. What group hasn't been accused of this at some time or other?

Suffice to say, every time I hear that troupe, I want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

Open Letter to Clothing Manufacturers

OK, you clothing-making assholes,

1) Give me ALL the shirt buttons. I will decide how much of my blouse I want to leave unbuttoned.
2) You know what's tossed on my bed right now? Brand new men's pants. And you know what I'm going to do with them? I'm gonna WEAR them. I have absolutely had it with poor quality, thin fabric, and stupidly small pockets. After traipsing all over that damn mall trying to find something vaguely acceptable, I took my child-bearing hips and all the junk in my trunk over to the men's section, and you know what I found. Stuff that fits. Screw you, women's clothing makers!

I wish I'd tried the men's section years ago. I honestly didn't think it would work with my body shape. I've got a 34 inch waist, 43 inch hips, and 27 inch inseam. 36X29 or 38X29 pleated fronts, baby. Taken in a vacuum, I'll admit they don't have the nicest line possible. I'm using pleats designed to hang straight in order to get room for my hips, so there's a bit of flair. But you compare to the women's equivalent, and you know what? Most women's pants do that to me, too, except now I won't have my wallet and my keys protruding from my hips like a pair of saddlebags. Men's pockets just keep going and going! I stick my hand in one and keep going to mid-forearm. It's wonderful.

They really don't look any different on me than most of the women's pants I've bought. I don't think anyone will be able to tell they're men's.
Honestly, right now I'm thinking all that "women's bodies are so different that they need specially made pants" stuff is a bunch of advertising hooey. It would certainly be true if clothing was well shaped and tailored, but it's not in this mass-produced world. I think women's and men's pants patterns are a LOT more similar then the companies want us to believe.

So, ladies, if you haven't tried to see if men's pants would fit you, take some time and see, even if you're curvy. If you don't find anything you like, you're not out much, and if you do, you'll be very happy. Even if you don't think it'll work, give it a try. 9-inch waist-hip difference here, worked just fine.

I was so intoxicated by the functional pockets thing that I bought myself a nice comfy pair of cargo pants. :) I swear I could throw a knitting project into one of those pockets, ball of yarn and all. (Single sock knitting would fit just fine, I have no doubt at all. Ooh, that'd be deliciously geeky.)

A few weeks ago, someone who works for a clothing manufacturer wrote into a thread on Ravelry (I think) explaining what she goes through, and suddenly all the problems with women's clothing make sense. It all comes down to money, both at the design company and then again at the manufacturing plant. Every quarter inch of fabric they save, every curve they reduce to straight lines, every button and buttonhole they don't put on, every extra patternset they can cut out at once (even though it negatively affects the fit of the bottommost pieces), basically every single cent they can squeeze out of a single item is worth it at their volumes, regardless of what it does to fit or quality. Screw the customer. And they can get away with this in women's clothing because historically, every clothing producer has done this and there's no competition. We're used to have no pockets, to having to try on every individual item because even the same items differ between units, and having our clothes wear out in three months, and there's little to nothing on the market for us that doesn't have these problems.

Men's clothing, on the other hand, has historically been long-wearing, fit to size, and had deep pockets. A 34-waist, 32-inseam guy buys his 34 X 32 pants without trying them on, gets them home, and finds they don't fit, he takes them back and he doesn't buy that brand anymore, because he knows when he grabs the competitions off the rack, they will fit. He sticks his hand into a pocket and about breaks his fingers before his wrist is into it, he's going to raise hell and buy the competition. His clothing wears out after 12 washes, he's taking it back, complaining, and buying the competition.

In men's clothes, those are defects. In women's clothes, they're industry standard. In case I'm not clear, let me stress that these problems are not the faults of end consumers, they're the fault of the manufacturers. We female consumers don't have alternatives. Show me a women's clothing manufacturer that, for decent prices, makes clothing that's robust, always fits like the tag says, and has deep pockets. (PLEASE. I'm desperate to buy from the company.)

Until then, guess I'm buying men's pants. :)

See, this is why I hate Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is convenient to the bus line, so every once in a while the grocery shopping gets done there. Now, I usually have a little container of yogurt as a mid-morning snack at work. Usually I get the grocery store brand, which isn't fabulous yogurt but is pretty good. So we picked up the Wal-Mart equivalent.

Ugh! Ack! Melodramatic gagging sounds! That is absolutely the most disgusting thing I can remember having eaten. The stuff tasted like flavored corn starch. And since those were two of the top three ingredients, I suppose that's not surprising. I know a lot of commercial yogurts have corn starch in them, but most of them don't taste like it. This was not yogurt. I'm sure it met some legal definition of yogurt, but it's not yogurt.

OK, so I got some lousy yogurt. But this just reinforces my biggest gripe about Wal-Mart: its exploitation of the poor. There's this strong (and I would say cultivated) air about Wal-Mart of "you have to shop here because you can't afford anywhere else." And indeed, I know many people who shop at Wal-Mart because they don't think they can afford anywhere else. But the thing is, and the thing my family members can't seem to catch on to, is that Wal-Mart has a very bad value-to-cost ratio. The stuff they sell isn't just cheap, it's crappy beyond what it's price suggests. Take the yogurt again. The grocery store brand is actually cheaper, tastes much better, and I think has better nutritional capabilities. In my experience, just about everything Wal-Mart sells can be had elsewhere at similar prices and better quality. But they've cultivated this image of "we're the cheapest", and a further insinuation of "you can't afford any better" to those most struggling to keep it together financially.

No more Wal-Mart shopping, I don't care how convenient it is.